ASBMB Represented in Nifty Fifty

June 8, 2010--In a massive effort to ignite a passion for science and engineering in middle and high school students, the USA Science & Engineering Festival will send more than fifty top scientists into local schools this October 10-24, 2010. Dr. Mark Perks was chosen to represent ASBMB because of his work in chemistry.

The Nifty Fifty, as they are called, were carefully chosen from hundreds of nominees for their differing fields, talents, backgrounds, ages, and ability to convey the importance of science for our nation’s future.

The scientists were nominated by more than 100 professional science and engineering societies, including the National Academy of Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Association for American Women in Science; 100 universities and colleges, such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Naval Academy; 50 federal agencies and laboratories, including the National Science Foundation, NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; 75 informal science outreach organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Botanic Garden and the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences; and more than 25 corporations, many of which are festival sponsors.

ASBMB is honored to be represented by Perks, a senior lecturer in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Other Nifty Fifty participants include Dr. Bonnie Bassler, a member of ASBMB and a professor of molecular biology at Princeton, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins and AAAS Chief Executive Officer Alan Leshner, to name a few. Learn more about the Nifty Fifty program.